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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 6185549" data-attributes="member: 22424">I'm not actually convinced we'll see a Pathfinder 2nd Edition as such:Firstly, electronic publishing is in the process of killing print and taking its stuff. Sooner or later, there's likely to come a point where it makes sense to switch off the printers and go electronic-only.However, as soon as you do go electronic-only, 'books' become pretty much the least efficient way to present new mechanics. A properly linked electronic enecylopedia is a much more efficient way of organising things (and especially if you make sure to keep each 'thing', be it a feat, spell, magic item, or whatever, small enough to fit on an iPhone screen or similar display). We already have at least two good examples of this: the DDI Compendium and the PFSRD. Once you've got that in place, you can simply add new material as needed, and it immediately becomes available, easy to access... and it doesn't require people to look up several 'books' to determine the powers of a single monster/character/whatever.As I see it, there remain two big problems with that approach:- It's not clear how best to make money from this. The two competing approaches seem to be to offer access to the tool via subscription (as in DDI), or by effectively going free-to-play and making money by selling adventures, settings, and other supplementary materials that build on the database (the Pathfinder subscriptions model). Both seem to have legs... but it remains to be seen whether they're viable long-term, or if one or both will actually fold up once the edition reaches saturation.- It's also not clear how best to handle change. Do you simply accept that things are basically fixed once printed (as in most games, where errata tend not to happen), do you gradually incorporate changes as time goes on (as in DDI with the periodic revisions), or do you go for a "big bang" approach where you effectively srap everything and go for a new edition?The problem with that last, though, is that unless you completely switch off the old version (alienating your customers), you're now left competing with your own older version. And since the new edition cannot possibly have the same range of options available on day one (for obvious reasons), that means you're either stuck with your new edition essentially being compatible with the old (and so just being unusually-extensive errata), or it's effectively an entirely new game (as with 4e vs 3e, and 5e vs both 4e and 3e). But will either approach convert enough players to justify the effort? It doesn't seem to have done so thus far.I may well be wrong, of course. I frequently am. But it does look to me like we may be reaching a point where new editions of successful games may no longer be a viable approach.</blockquote>

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